


I will make it eventually

by sarahcakes613



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Meetings, Light Angst, M/M, Philosophy, Pre-Relationship, Professor Rafael Barba, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25943431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Professor Rafael Barba is less than two months away from his 40th birthday, a day that he has been preparing for since he was a child and decided he was never going to find his soulmate.Then ADA Carisi shows up to ask for help with a case.Bingo fill for "Human beings die at 40 unless they meet their soulmates before".
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 98
Collections: Barisi Soulmate Bingo





	I will make it eventually

**Author's Note:**

  * For [detective_giggles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/detective_giggles/gifts).



> Thank you to Stephanie for the initial idea of Professor Rafael and for helping me name his seminar (and for being my constant Twitter cheerleader while I've been writing this!), to Sierra for naming Rafael's cat, and to Nadia for the title and being my sounding board at all hours of the day (sometimes literally).
> 
> I have read this thing through so many times my eyes are crossing. Any typos devious enough to have hidden from me this long deserve to stay in situ.

“Good morning. My name, which I’m sure you all know and have already looked up on ratemyprof dot com, is Dr. Rafael Barba. You may call me Dr. or Mr. Barba. You may also call me Rafael, if you’re feeling adventurous. Please do not call me Sir, we do not have that kind of relationship.”

Rafael pauses as a few students titter.

“If you’re not here for Seminar 490, Mystical Experiences of the Near-Dying: From Bergman to Reddick, A Pop Culture Retrospective on Looking Death in the Face, you are in the wrong lecture hall. I’m going to be taking attendance today, but this is just so I can put faces to names. After today, you can show up as little or as often as your learning style dictates.”

Rafael enjoys seeing the expressions shift from boredom, to confusion, to excitement. It’s the same every September, a new batch of graduate students who are seeking to understand the world they live in. It’s not an easy seminar to teach, especially for him, but he hasn’t regretted it once in the four years since he convinced Dean McCoy to let him run it.

Plus, he’s thrilled to no longer be teaching first-year frat boys who think an intro-level humanities course is going to be an automatic easy A.

Dean McCoy had been wary about letting Rafael run it again this year, and he knows with good reason. He’s got an extremely diligent TA in Carmen Noble however, and he is confident she will be able to take the lead on the seminar from the end of October into the winter semester, when Professor Efron has agreed to take over.

McCoy had asked Rafael why he wants to keep teaching, why he wasn’t getting out there, travelling, experiencing all the vagaries of life before he runs out of time.

“Your soulmate is out there, and you could be one train ride away from meeting them. If you give up now, you give up for two.” Jack had pointed out, and Rafael knows he means well, but he’s been hearing the same tired clichés for nearly forty years.

“Sure, but they could just as easily be on the other side of the world. Jack, I know you’ve read my thesis. The entire concept of singular soulmates is claptrap. When I die, someone else will take my place as potential for whoever is out there waiting.”

From an early age, Rafael has chafed at the concept of soulmates. Has absolutely seethed at the thought that someone somewhere was dictating who he was meant to fall in love with. Marrying her soulmate hadn’t saved his mother from a lifetime of misery, and as far as he’s concerned, the whole system is a mess not worthy of his time.

It had been hard, at first, explaining to people. Explaining time and time again that yes, he is 30, 35, 39, no, he has not met his soulmate, yes, he knows he is running out of time. And yes, he has in point of fact accepted his fate.

He’s not afraid of dying early. He is afraid of being stuck forever.

He’d made his choice early, when he was still trying to sort out what he wanted to do with his life. He’d gone into political science, thinking perhaps he’d dedicate his short time on earth to policy reform, or maybe immigration law. All that had changed on his first day of PSCI 310: Ancient Political Thought.

Professor Schiff had deviated almost immediately from the syllabus, opening up the floor to a debate on early soulmate philosophies as theorized by the political pundits of the ancient world. Rafael had left the class already outlining his change of major application from poli-sci to philosophy.

He’s worked hard through three degrees and two books and he is now considered one of the world’s foremost experts on soulmate theory with a focus on thanatology. His Master’s thesis (An Argument for the Existence of Multiple Soulmates) had been a delve into the myths and superstitions of the left-behind, those people who by the inherent nature of soulmates, were somehow destined to also die at forty simply because their own soulmate had predeceased them.

He knows his own story adds a layer of gritty glamour to his subject matter, and many of his admirers had decided for themselves that he was in point of fact one of these left-behind, somehow glossing over the part where he’d clearly outlined why the concept is inherently false and that potential soulmates were latent in everyone.

“Dr. Barba?”

He’s let the class out early on their first day, with a friendly warning that it won’t happen again, but some of his students have stayed behind and he leans against his desk to chat with them as they ask questions about office hours and what his personal favourite pop culture personification of death is.

He winks and tells them not to miss class in the third week of October. He doesn’t tell them that choosing that date for his personal favourite is a symbolic choice, that he will not be back for class in the fourth week.

“Dr. Barba?”

This time it is not a student, and he looks up – and continues looking up, following the line of the man’s long body up to his eyes, which are looking curiously at him.

“That’s me,” Rafael answers. “Can I help you?”

“Maybe, I hope so. I’m Sonny Carisi, I’ve left a couple of messages with your department secretary? She said I’d find you here.”

Rafael thinks for a minute and then snaps his fingers.

“The ADA, right? You had some questions about my testimony in the Rudnick case.” He holds his hand out, and Carisi takes it, giving it a firm shake.

“Yeah, well, sort of, not exactly.”

Rafael stuffs the leftover syllabi into his briefcase and gestures to the attorney.

“Walk with me. I need caffeine and the only acceptable coffeemaker on campus is in my office.”

He leads Carisi out of the seminar hall and through the quad to the row of Victorian rowhouses, one of which houses the philosophy department.

He picks up his mail on their way to his office and then directs Carisi to move a stack of books off the chair in front of his desk while he sets up a fresh pot of coffee.

“Just put them anywhere,” he says, flipping through the mail. It’s mostly junk, invites and flyers for events he won’t go to. There is one large manila envelope that he suspects is another catalogue from SoulSeekers, because Rita had thought it would be funny to sign him up for their mailing list.

He turns his attention back to the other man, who looks woefully out of place in the creaky folding chair. He’s got silvery-grey hair but he looks youthful, and he’s tall, almost all leg, and wearing a trim three-piece suit. Most of the younger men who sit opposite Rafael’s desk show up in skinny jeans and flannels and Rafael takes a moment to appreciate this man who clearly dresses to present himself a certain way.

“So what can I do for you, Mr. Carisi?” Rafael asks, leaning back in his chair.

“Call me Sonny, please.” Carisi says.

“Sonny, then.” Rafael amends, and Sonny smiles. It’s almost blinding, a wide grin full of white teeth.

“Well, I was hoping I could maybe pick your brain about this case I’m building. I read your testimony in the Rudnick case and I think you might be able to give me some really valuable insight.”

Rafael gestures for him to keep going, and Sonny pulls a thin file out of his briefcase.

“I’ve got this guy, real piece of work, he’s looking to plead not guilty on charges of assault and attempted murder. He says he can’t be held responsible because the man he attacked was dating his soulmate. The accused’s soulmate, that is.”

Rafael arches a brow. “I’m not sure that’s really within my purview, counsellor. Those sort of cases happen all the time.”

“Yeah, but get this. My guy’s convinced he was being set up. He thinks the guy he attacked is his lady’s latent soulmate and he’s claiming self-defence. He says he had to try to kill him because if not, the other guy was gonna kill him instead.

Rafael draws out Sonny’s explanation on a post-it, trying to work it out visually.

“So, you’re saying your assailant – let’s call him A; he is claiming self-defence against B, because he believes if he hadn’t made the first move, B would have tried to kill him?”

Sonny nods. “Yep.”

“Right, and where does the soulmate come in?”

Sonny leans over and pulls a pen out of his jacket pocket. Rafael tilts the post-it pad towards him so he can add to the diagram.

“The soulmate was dating B, even though she was A’s soulmate. A is claiming that B somehow knew that if A died, his latent soulmate spark for the girlfriend would kick in.”

Rafael thinks he understands now, although it’s given him a minor headache. Thankfully, his coffee is ready.

“Coffee?” He asks, and Sonny nods.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Rafael pours two mugs and sets them down on the desk before reaching into his drawer for a bowl of sugar packets.

“No milk, I’m afraid. Old buildings, not enough juice in the fusebox for multiple kitchen appliances.”

Sonny shrugs and uses his capped pen to stir four packets of sugar into his mug while Rafael stares in horror.

“Please tell me you’ve eaten in the last hour,” Rafael says faintly. “Because otherwise I cannot in good conscience allow you to drink that caffeinated sugar liquid.”

The attorney grins sheepishly, but nods. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got a stomach lined with the finest New York street dogs.”

Rafael isn’t sure that’s quite what he had in mind, but it will have to do.

He takes a sip of his own unsweetened coffee.

“Okay, I think I’m up to speed on the basics of your case, so what exactly is it you want from me?”

Sonny slurps at his coffee before answering.

“Your testimony in the Rudnick case was what got him sent away. You were able to convince the jury that his belief that killing his girlfriend would somehow prevent his own early demise was just an excuse, that he knew there was no science behind it.”

“Yes, I recall. So you’re hoping to prove what, that this man’s reasoning is an excuse as well?”

“Well, no, he really seems to believe his story. What we – what I – need to prove is that regardless of whether he believes it, he didn’t know it for certain. That he had no way of knowing for sure that this other guy was a latent for his girlfriend.”

“What about this other man, is there any indication that he shared a similar belief?”

“You mean, was the perp’s paranoia founded? Nah, we got nothing to indicate that. So we have to prove that it was all in this guy’s head, that he’s the one who decided the victim was a latent, and his preemptive strike was actually premeditated, not self-defence.”

Rafael thinks for a minute before stepping over to his bookcase and pulling down some monographs that discuss latent soulmates and the use of predictive analytics. He writes down the titles on an index card before passing them over to Sonny.

“You may find these useful, if you would just initial and sign this?” He slides the index card across the desk.

Sonny does so. “You in the habit of forgetting who has your books?” He jokes, and Rafael smiles.

“No, I just find in my current situation it’s best to be organized. My successor will need to know who to bother if they aren’t returned before I leave.”

Sonny tilts his head, and Rafael is struck by his appealing resemblance to a curious Labrador Retriever.

“You goin’ somewhere?”

Rafael stares at him.

“Not exactly. I presume you know my situation?”

Sonny flushes darkly. “Yeah, shit, my bad. Um, is that – I mean, you don’t look like you’re close to forty.”

“And you’re very kind, but we both know you’re lying.” Rafael laughs. “I’m 39, counsellor.”

Sonny blinks at him. “Oh, shit.”

“Oh shit, indeed.” Rafael smiles as he sips his coffee. There’s something endearing about the counsellor’s approach. He appreciates the lack of sincere apologies or questions about how he feels.

Sonny leaves soon after, promising to return the books as soon as he can. Rafael tells him to take all the time he needs, but he can’t deny he wouldn’t object to another interaction with the other man.

He’s only got two months left, he may as well get his small pleasures where he can.

Rafael runs his fingers over the little diagram they’ve drawn. He wonders what criteria the defendant was using to determine his belief, or if he would have believed it of anyone dating his soulmate.

He pities the soulmate. He respects her choice not to be with her destined, and look where it got her. He hopes she and her partner can overcome this together.

He thinks about all the times he begged his mother to leave his father, and the way Lucia would smile sadly and say “oh, _mi hijo_ , and be alone? This isn’t a world built for being alone.”

He’s spent his entire life proving her wrong, and while he’s proud of everything he’s accomplished and more than ready to meet his fate, he wishes he could have made her believe just a little sooner.

Carisi’s defendant choosing self-defence is an interesting position. If his lawyer can’t prove intent on the boyfriend’s part, he could still argue that the other man was interfering with his client’s right to his destiny.

It’s been successfully argued before, Rafael knows, but mostly in family courts. He remembers hearing about a rather famous celebrity couple who wound up having their entire divorce play out on the gossip websites because the “she said/he said” was her claiming that he was purposefully dragging out the divorce to prevent her from being with her soulmate, who she’d met on set. He doesn’t recall how it ended, and he idly thinks about looking it up on Wikipedia, or maybe just asking Rita.

Thinking about her reminds him of his mail, and he flips through it again until he finds the large manila envelope. When he opens it, it’s exactly what he expected, a catalogue from SoulSeekers.

The entire concept disturbs him, makes him feel like he’s shopping for a mail-order bride. Companies like SoulSeekers publish these monthly catalogues filled with photos and profiles, and the idea is that somehow, through some stroke of luck, you will be thumbing the pages and find your soulmate.

They claim an absurdly high success rate, considering how often some of the profiles have repeated. Rafael skips to the back page, where there are always a few “testimonials” that sound more like G-rated letters to Penthouse Forum. “Dear SoulSeekers, you won’t believe what happened when I got to page 9 of last month’s issue!”

He takes some small delight in sending it flying into his recycling bin, along with most of the other mail. He leaves aside a few cards from former students and one invitation to a departmental wine and cheese that is scheduled for the end of September.

He puts ADA Carisi out of his head for the rest of the day and for the next three weeks, until the doors at the back of his lecture hall creak open during a class and everybody turns to see who the interloper is.

Carisi winces, putting his hands up in an apologetic gesture and exaggeratedly tiptoeing over to the back row of seats. The recessed fluorescent lighting gleams down on his silver hair, turning it a shimmering blonde.

Rafael tries to ignore him, gesturing to the student who had been talking to keep going. They’re discussing one of Rafael’s favourite films and he periodically stops to show short clips from it on the projector screen.

On the one hand, Rafael wonders if he should wrap class up early today, surely Carisi has other places he needs to be. On the other hand, his class schedule is clearly listed on the department’s website and Carisi is not paying to be here the way his students are.

He sticks to his lesson plan, and when he next looks up at the lawyer, he is thumbing through his phone, his feet up on the long curved desk that runs the length of the row.

Rafael clears his throat, and years of teaching allow it to carry to the back of the room, where Carisi looks up, startled, and then at his feet. He drops his feet down, mouthing a “sorry” to Rafael.

Returning his focus to his students, Rafael points at the paused video still showing on the projector.

“So Antonius challenges Death to a chess game, utterly convinced that as long as the game keeps going, he can prevent his impending 40th birthday. I want you to think about Ingmar Bergman, who was himself in his late 30’s when he made this film. How did that affect his portrayal of death vis-à-vis the fear of losing to it? Please bring in your reflection pieces next week. Class dismissed.”

Sonny stands as the students file out, and waits for Rafael to roll up the projector screen and put his papers away.

“And what can I do for you today, counsellor?” Rafael asks him as he packs up.

“Sonny, please.” Carisi reminds him.

“Of course, what can I do for you Sonny?”

Rafael is inexplicably reminded of a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean. There is something about Sonny’s buttoned up look, his waistcoat and tailored suit that don’t match his name, and using it feels vaguely illicit to Rafael.

“I wanted to give you an update on my trial. Do you have time, maybe I can buy you some lunch?”

Rafael considers Sonny for a moment and then nods. “That sounds good, actually. There’s a quite nice student-run café in the building adjacent to this one, come on.”

He leads Sonny through the halls and over the covered footbridge that spans the road below, linking the two buildings. As always, Rafael is careful to walk in the middle of the bridge and to look straight ahead the entire time.

“Not a fan of heights?” Sonny asks curiously.

“Not when they’re accompanied by floor to ceiling windows that look out over several lanes of traffic, no.” Rafael states, slightly embarrassed that Sonny had noticed. “You’re quite observant, Sonny. I imagine that serves you well in court.”

Sonny rubs the back of his neck. “I used to be a cop, actually. Being observant was kinda my job.”

“Oh? And what lured you over to the prosecutorial side of crime and punishment?”

“My soulmate.”

Rafael looks inquisitively at Sonny, who shakes his head.

“Nah, I mean, I haven’t met them yet. I had a couple of pretty close calls at work though and it scared me, the thought of dying before I meet them, and what it might mean for them. I mean, I don’t know about all this latent soulmate stuff of yours, but I just didn’t want to stay somewhere that made it more of a likelihood, I guess.”

“A closet romantic.” Rafael comments, and he knows his tone is a bit acidic.

“I guess,” Sonny says amiably, “Plus, how awkward would it have been if my soulmate’s a criminal and I was the one arresting them.”

“You could still be the one prosecuting them.” Rafael points out, and Sonny nods.

“Yeah, maybe,” he agrees, “but at least then I don’t have to handcuff them a minute after we meet.”

Rafael is a regular at the café, so he doesn’t bother placing an order, but he stands with Sonny while he contemplates the menu. Sonny orders a roast beef with cranberry and brie, and Rafael just nods when the server asks If he wants his usual.

He waves off Carisi’s attempts to pay and directs him to choose seats for them. Sonny goes, and then stands undecided, hovering between two empty seats at the window bar and a low table with two overstuffed armchairs.

Rafael joins him and solves the indecision by sinking into one of the armchairs with a groan.

“Sandwiches should be here shortly,” he murmurs, his eyes closed. “Are you on a schedule, or can we eat before we talk?”

He hears the springs in the chair opposite him creak as Sonny settles in.

“I’ve got time. Besides, my ma always told me never to mix business with pleasure.”

Rafael opens his eyes. “Mine just always told me to chew and swallow before I spoke, but I guess your reasoning works too.”

The server brings over their drinks and sandwiches, and Rafael happily digs into his sabich pita while Sonny more carefully tucks into his roast beef, leaning over the table in an effort not to wind up with cranberry sauce on his tie.

They eat in companionable silence, and then Rafael leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers in what his students like to call his “Dr. Barba, MD” look. He’s tempted to ask Sonny how the sandwich made him feel, but knows he won’t get the joke.

“You said you had an update on your trial?” He reminds Sonny, as Sonny licks a smear of melted cheese off his lip. Rafael watches his tongue flick out, subconsciously mirroring the movement.

“Yeah, a big part in thanks to those books you lent me,” Sonny says, pulling a sheath of photocopied papers out of his briefcase. “I hope it’s okay that I’ve still got them, I’d like to reference them a bit more when I start drawing up my trial notes.”

“Of course,” Rafael nods. He sees that the photocopies are from one of the titles in question, a meta-analysis of research done into pattern recognition and whether or not it’s use can be applied in a medico-scientific setting to determine enough match points that one could apply it to finding predictive soulmates.

“I was also wondering if you’d be willing to testify as an expert witness?” Sonny looks over at him.

“I didn’t realize you were so close to trial already.” Rafael says, surprised.

Sonny nods. “The grand jury came back with their indictment yesterday. One charge of attempted murder and two counts of assault in the first degree. We go to trial next month.”

Rafael’s heart twists, but October is only a week away, and he still has three weeks after that.

“Do you have a trial date?” He asks cautiously.

“Yeah,” Sonny says, tapping through his phone. “Opening statements and first witnesses are going to be called on October 25th.”

Rafael’s heart sinks.

“I’m sorry, Sonny, truly, but I won’t be able to help. I won’t be here.”

“What, you gotta mid-term vacation booked?” Sonny grins, but his smile falters when he sees the somber look on Rafael’s face.

“My fortieth birthday is on October 24th.” Rafael states. “I won’t be able to testify for you because I will no longer be among the living.”

Watching Sonny react is a study in contrasts. His full pink lips thin and pinch until they are white and his skin pales except for two spots of red high on his cheeks.

“Sonny,” Rafael begins, but Sonny holds up a finger, and he falls silent.

Sonny looks angry, and Rafael knows his own opinion is highly valued in the courts but he is also not the only expert on the subject matter and he would be happy to introduce Sonny to other colleagues of his who could help.

“I just don’t understand.” Sonny says. “I just don’t get how you can be so flippant about this.”

Rafael stares at him.

“I’ve built an entire career around this. I’ve known this day was coming for 30 years. I’m not flippant, I’ve simply accepted this reality.”

“But why?” Sonny insists. “Why would you choose this? Why wouldn’t you fight? I looked you up, you know. You’re not registered with a single soul-search forum. You aren’t even registered in the city program. It’s like you never even tried.”

He looks confused, like he can’t comprehend why someone would seek to actively avoid their destiny. Rafael knows Sonny has not met his own soulmate yet, and he’s young, probably still full of hope and excitement for his eventual destiny-mandated eternal happiness.

Rafael feels inexplicably angry in response.

“I don’t owe you an explanation, counsellor.” He says, his voice frosty. “I would be happy to connect you to one of my equally capable colleagues, but I’ll thank you not to presume that you have the right to question the choices I have made for my life.”

Carisi looks like he’s been slapped, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. Rafael feels like he’s just stepped on a puppy’s tail, but quite frankly the puppy had no business walking in front of his foot.

“I have office hours to get to,” he lies. “Please keep the books as long as you need them. I’ll send you contact information for Drs. Novak and Cabot down in Chicago, I think either of them would be more than suitable to answer any further questions you have.”

Rafael throws back the last of his coffee and sets the mug down hard on the table. Carisi flinches at the solid thunk as ceramic hits wood, but he is looking down, his jaw set in a clench, and he doesn’t look up when Rafael leaves.

He does forward the promised info to the ADA and receives a distantly polite confirmation of receipt from Carisi’s legal secretary. In the second week of October, his books are returned via courier.

There is no note, but as he flips through one of them, Rafael finds a post-it stuck between the pages, a temporary bookmark. He recognizes Sonny’s scrawl from the diagram they’d drawn together, and he pulls it out to see what it says.

He types it into Google, and is surprised to learn that the ADA is a fan of Nicholas Sparks. He’s not sure if this is something Carisi had planned to work into his opening statement, or if it he’d just been reading this book in his downtime and liked the sound of the quote. He doesn’t know if it’s meant to be a message to – to who, to Rafael?

He sticks the post-it on the corner of his computer monitor and then attempts to ignore it.

He finally tells his class that Carmen will be replacing him at the end of the month. There are tears, but not many. It’s as he’d said to Carisi, his story is well-known, and most of his students had done the math.

As promised, his last class with them is focused on his personal favourite personified representation of death. He has spliced together snippets of Hamilton and uses his laser pointer to keep the students focus on the Bullet’s position on stage in each clip.

The symbolism of this character, the way she interacts with characters who die, the role she plays each time she furthers the story towards Hamilton’s demise, it’s incredibly subtle, and that subtlety is what most appeals to Rafael.

He likes the idea of death being there when you aren’t looking. As a viewer, he is not surprised by her movements, but in the guise of the characters, she is a shock. He has always known when death would be coming, there are no surprises in store for him, and he likes seeing the alternative play out on stage.

His birthday, when it comes, is on a Sunday, and he wakes up late, mildly put out that he has a hangover but self-aware enough to know he is the only one to blame for it. He’d wanted to spend his birthday alone, so he had gone out the night before with some friends, drinking like it was his 21st birthday and not his 40th.

When he looks at his phone there are two messages from his mother. Lucia’s heart breaks every time she thinks about her son, Rafael knows as much because she tells him every time they speak. He is sorry he couldn’t be more for her, couldn’t do more for her when he was a child. He is sorry everything he has done isn’t enough.

He calls her after breakfast and they have one last tearful conversation where he reminds her once again that none of his choices are her fault. He hopes this time, she will believe him. He tells her he will haunt her if she doesn’t, and he hears a watery laugh on the other end of the line.

The day stretches out ahead of him, and there isn’t very much for him to do. His affairs are all in order, papers signed weeks ago. Everything in his home is clearly labelled as to who or where it should be delivered, his kitchen is empty of anything perishable, and his keys are in an envelope by the front door.

He watches his cat stretch out along a windowsill, trying to catch the last bit of a patch of setting sun. Dorothy Wallace’s litterbox has been cleaned, her automatic food dispenser refilled, and Carmen will be picking her up immediately after her morning class lets out.

There is nothing left to do but wait.

Idly, he thinks about the post-it sitting on the monitor in his office at work. He looks up Nicholas Sparks on Kindle. He doesn’t know how he feels about the last charge on his credit card being for a tropey romance novel, but he buys it anyway.

Four hours later, he is rubbing away the grit that accumulates in his eyes after staring unblinkingly at a small screen for so long. He briefly regrets that the last thing he ever reads is going to be that bad, but maybe it’s fitting.

He does one final walk through of his home, unplugging things and making sure everything is powered down.

As he gets ready for bed, he thinks about how upset Sonny had been with Rafael, the kicked puppy look that had flashed across his face before Rafael had walked out of the café.

He’d looked Carisi up, at some point in the past few weeks. He knows the man is only just thirty, and has published a handful of articles on points of criminal law, mostly about sex crimes. He’s a vocal proponent of changes to soulmate consent laws, which Rafael admires. Rafael realizes he doesn’t actually know where Sonny himself falls on the belief spectrum.

He’d called Rafael’s research “that latent soulmate stuff”, and Rafael wonders if he’s a skeptic. If he believes there is truly only one person out there for him. If so, it’s no wonder he’d been so upset with Rafael’s seemingly indifferent attitude towards his fate.

Sonny thinks there is someone out there who is going to go on for a year, maybe five, maybe ten, and then die alone, because Rafael wasn’t interested in finding them. Well, it’s too late for that now. What Rafael is not interested is spending his last night wishing for a time machine.

He gets into bed, closes his eyes, and says one final prayer.

He wakes up.

His first thought is that he is being proven wrong about the existence of an afterlife and won’t his abuelita be happy to see him. When he opens his eyes however, the expected white light is not there. What is there instead is Dorothy Wallace sitting on his chest.

He stares at her and she stares back.

“Meow,” she greets him.

“What.” He sputters.

“Meow,” she says insistently, head pushing against his chin.

He sits up abruptly, sending her scrambling down his legs with a discontented squawk. He pinches his arm, lightly slaps himself in the face. Nothing changes. He looks at the alarm clock on his nightstand. He’d turned the alarm off before going to bed, and the time blinks up at him, 9:25 AM in glowing red numbers.

He doesn’t bother looking at his phone. There won’t be anything, he’d downloaded an app that will have wiped his SIM card at midnight.

“I don’t understand.” He says helplessly to the empty room. He shouldn’t be awake – he shouldn’t be _alive_.

He thinks about the facts, lining them up neatly in his head. In 100% of cases, not meeting your soulmate by the time you turn forty results in fatality. Rafael had turned forty yesterday. Rafael is not dead.

Rafael has met his soulmate.

He knows his mind should be racing, should be cataloguing the dozens of people he has interacted with on a daily basis for the past few months. It isn’t, though, because he knows with the certainty of a man who stubbornly refuses to be wrong about this, who his soulmate is.

And he has a trial to get to.

He can’t call for an Uber or a taxi, which means he will have to either flag one down or take his chances with the subway. He rifles through his wallet and is relieved to see he has more than enough cash for the 20-minute cab ride to the courthouse.

He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He doesn’t look any different than he did yesterday. He’s not sure why he was expecting to. His hands shake as he tries to swipe shaving cream across his cheeks and he wipes it off, deciding not to risk his throat to a razor right now.

He puts on the black suit he’d expected to be buried in, but grimaces at the macabre nature of it and shucks it off immediately. He switches to a dark blue suit and slides a striped tie through the collar. He’ll do it up in the car.

Rafael is out the door and halfway down the street before he thinks about Carmen, his mother, his landlord. He runs back, scrawling a single hasty note that he leaves on the side table right by the front door.

He races back out and onto West End Ave, where he furiously waves his arms until a yellow cab pulls up.

“Supreme Court, as fast as you can, please!” He slumps back in his seat, buckling himself in and then trying to fix his tie. His hands are still shaking and he clenches them into fists, taking deep ragged breaths.

“You okay, bud?” His driver asks, peering at him in the rearview mirror.

“Not really, no.” Rafael cracks a smile for the first time today.

“Well, alright then.” The driver turns the radio up as they sail down the Henry Hudson Parkway and Rafael is pathetically grateful at not being asked to explain himself. He doesn’t know that he can, and he knows he’s going to need to soon enough.

It’s late enough in the morning that traffic is light, but an accident on the 26th St off-ramp has them stalled, and Rafael watches in a panic as the dashboard clock ticks over to 10:30. He’s been awake all of an hour. An hour longer than he ever thought he’d get.

When they finally pull ahead of the accident, he wants to yell at his driver to damn the traffic laws and step on it, but he stays quiet, not wanting to risk them getting pulled over. In the back of a police car is not the way he wants to show up in front of Sonny today.

They finally pull up in front of the courthouse and Rafael shoves a fifty into the driver’s hand.

“Keep the change.” He yells behind him as he launches himself out of the car and up the steps of the courthouse.

He has no idea where he’s going, but the security desk seems like a good place to start.

“Yes?” The guard looks over at him as he stands there, trying to catch his breath.

“I’m here for a trial?” He winces at the question in his voice. “I’m here for a trial. I’m meant to be a witness for the prosecution.”

“Name?”

“Rafael Barba. Dr. Rafael Barba. The ADA is Sonny Carisi.”

The security guard mouths the name to herself as she consults a clipboard. She frowns, looking up at Barba.

“Your name’s not on the witness list.”

“Right, no, I suppose it wouldn’t be.” Rafael babbles. “I didn’t expect to be here, you see. It’s all a bit sudden. Is there a way to page him?”

The guard looks at him.

“You want me to page him?”

“Yes?”

She shrugs, and picks up the phone. She dials an extension and waits for someone to pick up.

“I’ve got someone here saying he’s scheduled to witness for the court in docket 21-1816, but he’s not on the list. His name’s Barba, Dr. Rafael Barba.” She listens to the voice on the other end and then nods. “Yes sir, I’ll do that.”

She hangs up and gestures for Rafael to step through the security gate. “Someone will come escort you in a minute, just wait there.”

He nods, and sticks his hands in his pockets for something to do. He wishes he’d brought his phone if only to have the comforting weight of it in his hand right now.

He’s facing away from the main hall when he hears a loud voice behind him.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are or what kind of sick game you’re playing, but you need to leave, now.”

Carisi’s voice is strident, confrontational. Rafael tries to school his face into something calm, but his muscles are fighting him and he turns around with a smile that he is sure wavers on slightly hysterical.

“Hello, Sonny.” His voice doesn’t crack, but it’s a near thing.

“Dr. Barba? But – what – how?” Sonny steps closer to him, reaching his hand out and then dropping it to his side.

Rafael moves towards Sonny, who takes a step back.

“I don’t know why, or how,” Rafael says. “I went to sleep last night and I woke up this morning, and nothing makes sense, but I somehow just knew. It’s you.”

Sonny shakes his head, trying to dispel what he’s hearing. “No, that’s not possible. We woulda known sooner. _I_ woulda known sooner. We shook hands, we touched, there wasn’t – there was no spark.”

His voice gets lower as he speaks until he is practically whispering in a broken voice. “I don’t understand.”

Seeing Sonny now, Rafael thinks maybe he finally _does_ understand. How else could he have missed this giant glowing beacon of a man standing in front of him?

“I think it was me.” He says, and Sonny wrinkles his brow.

“My entire life has been a journey to an end point,” Rafael explains. “I was following a road with blinders on and I never bothered to turn my head and look for trails leading elsewhere. I don’t think it would have mattered who it was or when it happened, I was never going to have that moment of knowing at first sight.”

Sonny is silent for a moment and when he speaks, Rafael can hear the anguish in it.

“I wanted it to be you. After that first meeting, I knew it wasn’t – it couldn’t be, but I let myself think how nice it would have been if it was.”

“I think,” Rafael steps closer to Sonny and this time Sonny does not move back. “I was so determined not to know, not to see, that I sent that signal reflecting back out into the universe. When you saw me in that classroom, I might as well have been wearing a perception filter. No matter how hard you looked, you wouldn’t have seen me the way your soul wanted to.”

“And now?” Sonny asks. His eyes are shiny, his voice still a whisper.

Rafael reaches a hand up slowly and cups Sonny’s face.

“And now I see you, and there might as well be a neon fucking sign over your head because every fibre of my being is screaming at me right now that you are it, Sonny Carisi. You are why I woke up this morning, and you will be why I wake up every morning for the rest of what I hope will be a very long life.”

Sonny lets out a half-choked sob, his shoulders shaking. He rubs at his eyes with his knuckles, smiling ruefully.

“Oh man, we only just wrapped up our opening statements when the guard called, and now I’m already going to need to ask the judge for a longer recess.”

Rafael pulls away, remembering why he is even here at the courthouse specifically.

“The trial, god, Sonny, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine, it’s – well, okay, no, Judge Bertuccio’s probably gonna make me buy out his granddaughter’s next supply of Girl Scout cookies, but it’ll be worth it.”

Sonny cups Rafael’s face in his hands and looks him in the eye. “I’ve got to get back in there but I’m going to ask for a recess until after lunch. I will be right back. Don’t – please don’t leave.”

He keeps looking at Rafael until Rafael nods. He leans down and plants the lightest hint of a kiss in the corner of Rafael’s mouth before turning and sprinting back the way he came.

Rafael lifts his fingers to his mouth and catches the eye of the security guard. She winks at him, and he flushes, turning away to sit on a bench while he waits.

He assumes Sonny must have been in touch with one of the other experts he recommended, and even if he is allowed to amend his witness list, Rafael knows he is probably no longer considered an unbiased party.

He closes his eyes as he thinks with horror at how much his own career is about to change. He stands by his research, and he does still believe that if Sonny had not walked into his classroom at the beginning of September, he would now be deceased and someone else in the world would be out there waiting to spark for Sonny Carisi.

There are so many things he needs to do now. His home, his cat, his position at the college, all of it will need to be rebooted, like he is a computer that’s just been updated and now he needs to reinput all of his preferred settings.

God, he thinks sourly. Dean McCoy is going to be so fucking smug.

Sonny returns, slightly out of breath. “Alright, I’ve got – “ He looks at his watch. “about 90 minutes before I need to get back in there. Not enough time to go back to my office to talk, but we could go to a café or something?”

Rafael’s stomach chooses that moment to growl, and he realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything in over 12 hours at this point.

“That’s probably a good idea.” He admits sheepishly.

Sonny guides him back out onto the courthouse colonnade and then stops to point out some nearby options. He’s in the middle of suggesting a shawarma joint down the street when Rafael puts his hand on Sonny’s arm and turns him to face Rafael.

Sonny looks at Rafael and before he can open his mouth again, Rafael leans up into him and kisses him full on the lips. Sonny freezes for only the briefest of seconds and then melts into Rafael, lips moving against his. They stumble forward until Rafael’s back hits a column and Sonny pushes into him, like he is trying to occupy the same atomic space as his soulmate.

The kiss is everything Rafael wants to tell Sonny, everything he is sorry he couldn’t say sooner. It is hello, and there is no goodbye. His lips open and Sonny responds in kind, moaning softly as Rafael’s tongue dips into his mouth.

When they finally break apart, Rafael looks into Sonny’s eyes and sees them shining with a swirl of emotions. He sees hope, and fear, and excitement. He sees everything he feels inside of himself and more.

“I’m glad it was you.” Sonny says softly, tilting his forehead down against Rafael’s.

“I’m glad it was you.” Rafael says, and he is surprised at how strongly he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry if you don't understand what the photocopied papers Sonny has in the café are about. I wrote that entire paragraph and I couldn't even begin to tell you. I just wanted something that showed how dense academic language can be sometimes.
> 
> Rafael's fear of overpasses is stolen from myself. My college has one that crosses six lanes of traffic. That's a no from me, dawg. 
> 
> The film Rafael's class is watching when Sonny returns for his second visit is The Seventh Seal. I repurposed the plot a little bit for worldbuilding purposes, but the original is considered the first really iconic portrayal of death as a character and I HIGHLY recommend it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [But if you can just wait](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442886) by [sarahcakes613](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613)




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